Contents

Cover

Acts of Sacrifice – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Acts of Sacrifice

Evan Dicken

Sir Anaea knelt alone in the shadowed recesses of the chapel vault, hands clenched at her sides, head bowed in silent prayer. A muffled boom from outside caused the chapel to tremble, dust trickling from between the heavy stones overhead. Anaea opened her eyes at the sound of distant shouts, the clash of arms, but ignored the desire to leap up and join the rest of her Order as they tried to hold at bay the shrieking, gore-spattered mob that beat at the fortress walls like waves against a stony shore.

With a deep breath, she steadied herself. The Order of the Ardent Star was more than Anaea’s desire for vengeance, more than the creeping loss that seemed to shadow her every thought. Master Vaskar had taught her that. But Master Vaskar was dead, cut down by the Khornate champion Sulkotha Godspite, not two hundred paces from where Anaea knelt, his body lost to the numberless horde outside. That had been three days ago, when the Chaos army was not so large, when there had been enough Order knights to sally forth in hopes that the ravagers could be driven off. The images were scarred into Anaea’s memory – her comrades pulled down one by one, Vaskar falling to Godspite’s vile blade as he fought to buy the other knights time to withdraw. It had been all Anaea could do to retrieve her master’s sword, and the failure ached like an old battle wound.

Anaea exhaled and focused upon the statue of Myrmidia that presided over the chapel. The warrior goddess seemed a being of deadly grace, standing triumphant although her armour was scarred by blade and arrow. The burnished gold of her shield was bright even in the fading torchlight, and her spear seemed to glitter with the blood of defeated foes.

‘Stella Invicti.’ Anaea whispered the Order’s motto as her gaze fell to Vaskar’s sword upon the altar. As if to echo her darkening thoughts, there came another deep rumble from outside, followed by the roar of inhuman voices and the harsh crackle of balefire.

‘Blessed Lady Myrmidia, grant your loyal servant peace.’ Anaea reached for the blade, its well-worn hilt fitting comfortably in her hand. She set it before her, point resting on the chapel tiles. The metal of the pommel was cool against her forehead as she bowed once more. ‘Let his shining example light the way along the dark paths we must tread.’

It was a quick eulogy, far less than Master Vaskar deserved, but already more than Anaea could afford. She bowed, then turned away from the statue. Although Myrmidia cared little for genuflection and prayers, Anaea could not let her master go in silence. Moreover, she had needed time to focus, to prepare herself for what must be done. All that mattered to the Goddess of War was triumph. This time, however, there would be no glorious victory, no salvation.

All that remained was survival.

Anaea stepped from the chapel, striding across the courtyard with new purpose, but by the time she had crested the wall the ravagers had been driven off. So it had been since the siege started – Godspite raking the walls with hellcannon fire before sending her shrieking horde charging towards the fortress.

‘We beat them back.’ Master Karon stepped to Anaea’s side, removing his helm to scrub a hand through his thinning white hair. ‘Stella Invicti.’

Anaea echoed the old master’s words, but her stomach clenched as she surveyed the wreckage. Corpses sprawled across the battlement, the unholy sigils cut into their flesh marking them as followers of the god of slaughter. Most of the newly slain wore beaten, blood-red armour, but here and there her eye caught the glimmer of knightly plate, as though a handful of golden coins had been scattered amidst the carnage.

‘How many of our brothers and sisters were lost in doing so?’ she asked.

‘Too many,’ the old master conceded with a sour frown. ‘But they met a noble end.’

‘And how many remain?’

‘Less than one hundred.’ Karon shook his head. ‘Not enough to defend the eastern rampart, let alone the curtain wall. We shall have to pull back to the chapel.’

Anaea surveyed the horde, one of the seemingly numberless warbands of Chaos ravagers that had swamped the Flamescar Plateau like a bloody tide. ‘Have we received any word from Sir Leta?’

Karon’s silence was answer enough. They had dispatched Leta to the Burning Cliffs many days ago on a mission to seek aid from the Hermdar Lodge. The fyreslayers had never been friends to the Order, but the looming threat of annihilation made for strange alliances.

And yet, no one had come.

Click here to buy Acts of Sacrifice.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.

Acts of Sacrifice © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Acts of Sacrifice, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78030-777-0

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.